He could exist objectively. For example, you exist and not everyone knows you. However, you can't know someone who doesn't exist, and after meeting you, and knowing other people who have met you i can conclude you exist. But if you are invisible and you speak in code, and all that stuff, I wouldn't see a reason to believe you are a real person.
To My Fellow Atheists...
by Pika_Chu 77 Replies latest social humour
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Anony Mous
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
- Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy -
SweetBabyCheezits
Psac, your lack of arrogance makes you hard to debate.
Your question of "what would it take" is a good one. I can only speak for myself but if 7 billion people on this planet all received the same vision - a piece of information that was previously unknown to man - at the exact same time, transcending all languages and borders with no loss of meaning, clear to even the deaf and dumb, and he included some means to verify this data scientifically (since he should know how skeptical some are)..... I would be compelled to accept that message.
Or maybe not. I'm trying to be honest with myself, here. Even if I perceived the above event, I could not rule out insanity or even that solipsism might be reality (thought I'd lean towards the insanity explanation over solipsism).
“MAD, adj.: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual.
It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane. For illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.”
Ambrose Bierce -
PSacramento
He could exist objectively. For example, you exist and not everyone knows you. However, you can't know someone who doesn't exist, and after meeting you, and knowing other people who have met you i can conclude you exist. But if you are invisible and you speak in code, and all that stuff, I wouldn't see a reason to believe you are a real person.
Objectivity is subjective to our perceptions in the reality that we perceive.
But using your own words, if I may:
I know God through His Son, and I know God through the universe that he created, hence does that equal his existence?
Is God invisible? Yes, in the way we preceive things, but our visual perception of soemthing is just that, visual, we KNOW things that can't be perceived by ANY of our five senses and that doesnb't make then any less real or put into question whether they exist or not, does it?
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PSacramento
Psac, your lack of arrogance makes you hard to debate.
Your question of "what would it take" is a good one. I can only speak for myself but if 7 billion people on this planet all received the same vision - a piece of information that was previously unknown to man - at the exact same time, transcending all languages and borders with no loss of meaning, clear to even the deaf and dumb, and he included some means to verify this data scientifically (since he should know how skeptical some are)..... I would be compelled to accept that message.
Or maybe not. I'm trying to be honest with myself, here. Even if I perceived the above event, I could not rule out insanity or even that solipsism might be reality (thought I'd lean towards the insanity explanation over solipsism).
This is a journey for me too, one that is still filled with questions and one that I do not have all the answers for, that's for sure.
Thank you for the kind words, but arrogance was, at one time, a very big problem with me ( for a mirad of reasons).
I am glad that, at least according to you my friend, it is not as bad as it used to be :)
I have to be honest too, IF something like that were to happen to everyone, but me, I probably wouldn't believe it.
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OnTheWayOut
Anony Mous, your Hitchhiker's Guide reference wasn't wasted. I got it. Thanks for that.
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cofty
RIP Douglas Adams
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Pika_Chu
@Psac, I know. But an all-powerful being capable of making himself perceptible never has and never does make himself perceptible. I'm not just talking about invisibility. He never does anything. A god who doesn't reveal himself either doesn't exist or he loves playing mind games. One who wishes to be connected with humanity cannot hide away in obscurity and absolute imperceptibility and expect a connection.
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PSacramento
@Psac, I know. But an all-powerful being capable of making himself perceptible never has and never does make himself perceptible. I'm not just talking about invisibility. He never does anything. A god who doesn't reveal himself either doesn't exist or he loves playing mind games. One who wishes to be connected with humanity cannot hide away in obscurity and absolute imperceptibility and expect a connection.
One can argue that God indeed HAS done "something", He has revealed himself in his works ( The Universe), in the writings of inspired men ( the bible) and, perhaps most importantly, in his WORD Jesus Christ.
No other god has done so much for his creation.
That a part of his creation thinks this is not "good enough" speaks more about that part ( humans) than it does about God.
Perhaps.
But you will ask why doesn't God just "Stand up and be heard?", and I can answer truthfully that any answer I can give you would be opinion, no more, no less.
And I think that it would probably not be good enough.
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Pika_Chu
@Psac, I think this is where our opinions really start to diverge. I do not believe he has revealed himself in "his" word, nor to I believe the universe gives testimony to him. But I will admit that there may be a god out there. I just don't see the evidence to warrant that conclusion. But the "god" question is one of those important questions in life that no one knows the anwer for sure. We can only be either pretty sure he exists, pretty sure he is impossible, pretty sure he is improbable, or somewhere between that 0% and 99.99999....%, but we can never know for sure. But mysteries still make life interesting. Not all skeptics are killjoys, and I like not knowing for sure. But I just don't think he is PROBABLE.